


Innocence Is Not Knowing That You’re Innocent

by StarlightSystem



Series: Transcendence AU [17]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Angst, Gen, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-11-24 09:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20905109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: Belle knows her brother pretty well. He likes comic books, he cheats at board games, and he wants more than anything to be human again. So, when he wakes up one morning with no memory of the fact that he’s a demon, she figures there’s no reason to remind him just yet. He deserves some time to just enjoy being Dipper, and not have to be Alcor.Unfortunately, she can’t hide Dipper from the demon forever.





	1. For Just One Moment, I'm Free

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the [Transcendence AU](https://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/). Happy 5th anniversary to TAU!
> 
> Thank you to [ToothPasteCanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyFenton123/pseuds/ToothPasteCanyon) for beta reading and generally being awesome!
> 
> This takes place a couple of years after [Return, Rewind, Rewrite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781551), so it won't make much sense if you haven't read that first.
> 
> And finally, guess who actually wrote a whole fic before publishing any of it! Updates will be weekly ^_^

“Hey Belle?”

Belle, from the kitchen, blew a large bubble and let it pop. “Yeah bro-bro?”

“Uh… what’s this?” Dipper’s voice sounded off, like he’d been staring at a problem for hours and was finally begrudgingly asking for help. This didn’t happen as often as it used to, what with him turning out to be a demon of unparalleled knowledge, but when it did he still got just as pouty and defensive when Belle teased him about it.

(Possibly poutier, even, since he _loved_ to inform them that _actually_ he _did_ know everything and that he sometimes just doesn’t have _access_ to that info.)

Which was always fun. She could use a good chuckle today. “What’s what?” she replied in a singsong voice.

“I don’t know. A hat I think? Can you come look at it?”

Belle shrugged to herself, and unceremoniously dropped the plate she had been scrubbing into the sink. She tucked the gum she was chewing into the corner of her mouth, for later use. Then she skipped into the living room, half-expecting Dipper to be holding some sort of grotesque, otherworldly horror.

What she did _not_ expect was to find him staring forlornly at a black top hat.

“Where’d it go?” she asked, making a show of peering around the room.

“What?”

“The thing you want to show me.” She pulled a cushion off the couch and tuttered. “Where’d it go?”

“Uhh… it’s right here. The thing I’m holding. Obviously.”

Now Belle was even more confused. “Why are you asking me wh- wait a minute. Is this some sort of mind game you’re playing on me? What are the rules? Am I winning?”

“No, c’mon, Belle, seriously. Can you just tell me if you’ve seen this before?”

“I, uh… I don’t know?” Her brain was doing gymnastics trying to figure out what was going on in this conversation. Dipper really didn’t seem to be budging on whatever weird game he was playing with her, but it had to be _something_, because obviously the great and powerful Dreambender would be able to recognize his own hat, right?

Unless…

“Oh, okay.” He looked back down at the hat. “It’s… it’s just so weird, it’s like, it feels like I’ve seen this before, like it was mine when I was really young or something. You think that’s why I found it up in the attic?”

Belle screwed her face up. It was happening again.

“Belle? Belle?” He snapped his fingers, and she shuddered.

“That’s weird! Looks like just a hat to me, broseph!” She giggled nervously. “You said you found it in the attic? I’ll go ask dad about it!” With that, she snatched the hat out of her brother’s hands, and dashed from the room before he could complain.

Lionel was in the kitchen when she returned. He looked up from the messy pile of dishes in the sink, to his daughter who had just ran into the room and closed the door.

He raised an eyebrow. “Everything alright?”

For a minute, she just leaned against the door and breathed, big heaving breaths as if she’d just run a mile. Then she launched herself at her dad and hugged him.

“Dad!” she squeaked. “It’s happening again!”

He stared blankly at the bubbly girl attached to him. “What’s going on? What are you doing with Dipper’s hat?”

The glee in Belle’s eyes was practically tangible. “He’s doing the thing, the forget-y thing!”

It took a moment for Lionel to realize what she meant, and then he sucked in a breath. “He doesn’t remember that he’s Alcor?”

She nodded vigorously. “He’s back to -” She cut off just in time, but the word “normal” still sat heavy in the air.

“Belle…” Lionel took a deep breath in and out. “You know that’s not what’s happening. Remember what he said last time? His body is malfunctioning -- something about it trying to reapply the memory loss part of the deal I made with him. It’ll wear off sooner or later.”

There was a beat. “You know that he’s still Alcor, even when _he_ doesn’t know he’s Alcor, right?”

Belle rested one hand on her hip and waved dismissively at her father with the other. “Duh, Dipper’s a demon, I know that. But right now, he doesn’t! I’ve been waiting so long for this to happen a second time! This could be a chance for things to be -”

There it was again, that pressure in the air from the word that Belle had now twice felt too self-conscious to say out loud. Lionel frowned during this pause, and she saw the gears turning in his head. She knew what he was thinking, what he thought she was saying, and he was _totally 100% wrong_ because she had no problem with that fact that Dipper was actually a demon! She didn’t care what he was as long as he was still her brother, honest, and she found it quite insulting thank-you-very-much that her father didn’t understand that.

“Belle...” Lionel finally said. “He was really upset when he figured out who he was and all the memories came back. I know you’re excited, but I think it’d be best just to go ahead and tell him now, so that we can minimize the damage.”

“He’ll still be upset if we remind him now! Can’t we just let him be Dipper for a while?”

He glared at her. “He _is_ Dipper,” he said in a tone that sent a chill down her spine, that “settle down, kids” voice that all parents have. He saw her flinch, and his expression softened, but his voice stayed firm. “Demon or not, he’s always Dipper.”

She puffed out her chest. “I know that! That’s not what I meant! I meant that he’s always saying how he wishes he could just be a normal human again. I just want him to have that chance! Please? I swear I’ll tell him eventually. That’s a Belle promise!”

She stuck her tongue out. It bumped against something in her mouth -- the gum she’d forgotten she’d been chewing. A silly idea quickly blossomed in her head. She started rapidly chewing it, staring intently at her dad as she did so, and then blew a massive, bright pink bubble. When it was about two-thirds the size of her head, she pinched the end and pulled it out of her mouth, holding it like a balloon.

“See?” she said, grinning. “I can stop before things go too far. It’s like, a metaphor!”

She giggled at her dad’s bemused expression, and dropped the gum bubble into the trash. “You’ll see! Dipper’s going to be happy, I’m going to be happy, and you’re going to be happy! Everything’s going to be great.”

There was a knock at the door to the living room. “What are you guys talking about?” came Dipper’s muffled voice.

Belle lowered her voice. “Trust me on this, dad, please?”

He sighed. “Alright.”

“Yay! You’re the best dad ever!” she squealed, clapping excitedly. She gave her dad a quick hug, and then swung the door open. Dipper, who had apparently been trying to listen to their conversation through the door, yelped and crumpled to the floor.

“Belle, ow! What the hell was that for?” Rubbing his head, he sat up, and noticed Lionel watching from behind Belle. He blanched. “I mean, heck, what the heck was that for? Sorry dad.”

Belle looked around worriedly, but Lionel was smiling. “It’s alright. Belle, apologize to your brother.”

“Come on, dad, what are we, seven?”

Dipper pushed himself to his feet and sneered, “Yeah, Belle, apologize. Look what you’ve done to me! I could’ve broken a bone!”

He laughed to himself, and for a minute, Belle just stared. Then a big grin spread across her face, and she wrapped him in a massive hug.

“Yeah, you could have! Sorry bro. It was an accident, honestly!” She let go, saw his confused expression, and could only smile wider because of it. “Things’ll be better now, alright? I’ll make sure of it.”

* * *

It was 6am, and Belle had never been so excited for school.

“Come on, Dipper, we’re going to be late!”

He groaned, and pulled the covers over his head. “Five more minutes, please.”

She ran over and pulled the covers off the bed. He squeaked and curled up into a ball. “Hey!”

“Sorry, bro-bro, but you can’t sleep in!”

He sat up, and stretched his arms. “Not fair. I was having the weirdest dream and you took me right out of it.”

She tilted her head. “Dream?”

He closed his eyes and nodded lazily. “Yeah, it was like something out of a movie. I had these bat wings and was flying around and casting spells on people. I know you can cast spells but I can’t, so it was pretty cool. Maybe if I write it down right now I’ll remember more of it...” He reached for the dream journal on his bedside table, and Belle flinched.

“Uhh… nope!” She knocked the journal into an open drawer and closed it. “No time for weird dreams, bro-bro! We’ve got to get to school! It’s going to be a great day!”

He opened his eyes, and for a moment Belle thought she could see something gold shimmering in them -- but then it was gone. “Okay, fine, I’m getting up. I hope you’re happy!”

“I totally am!” She danced over on arched feet to her closet to get changed, but then paused and let herself fall back to the ground. “I, uh… I hope you’re happy too.”

He gave her a look that could only be described as unimpressed. “Uh, definitely not. Why are you acting so weird?”

“Oh, psshaw, I’m always acting weird. It’s endearing!”

With that, she hopped into the closet and shut the door. She pulled on her space leggings, she tied a ribbon in her hair, and she saw herself frowning in the mirror. Dipper wasn’t happy yet -- not the end of the world, but she _did_ sort of think he’d be happy right away, especially because waking up early to go somewhere you don’t want to go was an extremely typical human activity. But that was no matter, she told herself, because the main attraction of the day was still ahead.

School could be rather touch-and-go for Belle, but today she was really feeling alive. She waved goodbye to Dipper as he went off to his first class, and she could see through the sleepy, half-bored look in his eye and see that he was excited for the day, she knew it had to be true, because even _she_ was excited.

She skipped down the hall, stopping to chat with Alistair; to grab a water bottle from her locker because she left her pretty glittery unicorn one at home; and to give a high five to the janitor because he was really nice once you got past the whole spitting acid thing.

She took her usual seat when she arrived at class, and sat with her back straight and her hands folded over. Today, not even her fantastical thoughts could distract her from class, because her fantastical thoughts were _about_ class. She couldn’t care less about the different types of rocks and how they were formed, but she was attentive because she was imagining how happy Dipper must be in his class, receiving some equally boring lecture.

School was totally something he wouldn’t be able to enjoy as much as a demon, partially because his powers gave him access to almost all knowledge anyway, but also because getting beaten into the ground by the American public education system was a privilege that only mortals tended to get. She knew that he hadn’t gotten to go to high school, since the Transcendence had happened when he was 12, and though he had been attending it with her this whole time anyway, he occasionally complained about the fact that he couldn’t have a genuine experience with it because he wasn’t a powerless teenager. She didn’t 100% understand his motivations for that, because she _was_ a powerless teenager and everything about school that she did like (mostly the friends she made along the way) was attainable outside of a school environment, but she’d heard the spiel enough times to know it was what he wanted.

They didn’t share any classes in the morning, so she wouldn’t get to see how much he was enjoying things until lunch. When the bell finally rang, she scampered off to the lunch hall, scooped whatever mush they were serving today onto her tray, and sat at an empty lunch table, just like always.

Dipper was often late to lunch because he liked to hang back after class and ask the teachers questions they wouldn’t be able to answer (yes, even before Gravity Falls). When he sauntered up to the table with a tray similarly filled with mush, she was positively vibrating with excitement, her bracelets jangling against each other in a symphony of uninhibited joy.

Dipper, on the other hand, seemed nonplussed. Not upset, but not overjoyed either. He didn’t say anything when he sat at the table, just started eating his nondescript lunch, and she stared at him for a bit before nervously asking:

“Are you feeling any better?”

He swallowed the bite of food he’d been nursing, and grimaced. “Hmm, I don’t know.” He opened the cup of applesauce on his tray, took a bite, and smiled wide. “Mm, yeah. Much better.”

Belle beamed, her intentions justified. “So, would you say, on a scale from 1 to 10, that you’re having a Good Time, a Great Time, or an Excellent Time?”

“I’m going to ignore how weird you’re being right now because this apple sauce is so good.”

“Hmm... I’ll just put you down as Apple Sauce out of 10.”

He swallowed the spoonful he had been savouring. “How about you?”

“What?”

He gestured at her with the spoon. “Are you… happy? Yknow, the same question you’re asking me?”

She spluttered. “Yeah, I’m having a great time! Why wouldn’t I be?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why wouldn’t _I_ be? You keep asking, there must be some reason.”

“Oh shush, just eat your apple sauce.”

He shrugged, and went back to his food. “People call me weird, but I guess it runs in the family.”

Belle giggled, perhaps a little too much. “It sure does! You big weirdo!”

When they finished eating, she dropped her tray off in the servery and gave him a big hug again. He blushed and yowled that he was at school, seriously Belle, you’re embarrassing me, and she laughed and stole his hat, which made him steam even more.

“Alright,” he said after he’d gotten his hat back, starting down the hall and waving at her. “See you later then.”

“Not if I see you sooner!”

He gave her a weird look, and she just finger gunned him in response. That put a smile on his face, and she skipped off to her next class, satisfied.

And for a little while, it seemed to go on like that. They high fived in the halls, they ate lunch together, they argued over the TV remote at home. Some tiny part of Belle whispered to her that this was pretty much how things went even when Dipper knew he was Alcor -- but she knew that wasn’t right. She could see that this was different, that he was _smiling_ just a little more than he normally would, that there was something more genuine about him because, at least for a little while, he was getting to be the human he so desperately wanted to be.

So, she jumped out at him occasionally in the halls, because now she could spook him without him teleporting away. She stole his french fries at lunch because there would be no flash of serrated teeth slyly asking her to make a deal for them. At home, she threw a pillow at him so he’d drop the TV remote, because she knew a pillow fight wouldn’t end with claws out, pillows shredded, and an angry father shaking his head at them. Instead, it’d end with giggling twins telling ghost stories under a blanket fort.

And this was good, she told herself. All was right with the world. All was as it should be.


	2. Trouble in Paradise

“Dipper! Belle! Dinner!”

Belle, jumping around in her room and jamming to Evaporate the Dancefloor by &ndra, pulled out her earbuds. “Is someone calling me?” she yelled.

“Yes, I said it’s dinner time!” Lionel called back.

“Oh. Coming!” She dashed out of the room, ran down the stairs, and took a seat at the table. A plate of spaghetti sat before her. Belle eyed it, frowning.

“Something wrong?”

Belle balanced her chin on her fist. “Dad, what was your artistic intent with this dinner? I love the direction, but, I don’t know, I’m just not _feeling_ it, yknow? It just doesn’t _speak_ to me.”

Lionel gave her a thin smile. “My intent was to make sure you don’t starve.”

“Oh, I’m starving alright. I’m emotionally starved!” She leaned back in her chair, resting the back of her hand on her forehead dramatically. “This might be good enough for you and Dipper, but I need a dinner that makes me _think_!”

“If you don’t like this, you can make an emotionally stimulating dinner for the three of us tomorrow night. Speaking of which, have you seen your brother? His dinner is going to get cold.”

“I’m here,” Dipper said, shuffling into the room. He took his usual seat at the table -- next to Belle -- and his whole body seemed to droop. Belle raised an eyebrow. She glanced at her dad, who seemed to be having the same reaction.

The three of them were silent for a minute, and then Lionel coughed. “So, how was school, you two?”

Belle leaned over the table, putting her weight onto her palms. “It was great! Mindy and I presented our history project and Mrs. Riviera seemed to like it! I personally think bedazzling the poster board is what put us over the top -- Mindy says it was the extra detail we put into finding primary sources about gnomes instead of relying on Wikipedia, but I guess we just think differently!” She slid back into her seat, a satisfied grin on her face.

“Good job. I know you worked hard on that project.” He turned to Dipper, and his smile faded a bit. “Dipper? How about you?”

Dipper poked sullenly at his spaghetti with a fork. “It was okay.”

Belle bopped him on the shoulder. “Come on, you big nerd, you like school too much to not have anything to say about it.”

He shrugged, and swirled a noodle around his fork.

“Didn’t you have a test today?” Lionel asked. “How’d that go?”

Dipper jerked upright, looking like a deer in headlights. “Oh… y-yeah,” he stuttered. “It, uh. It didn’t go so well.”

Belle put down her fork and tilted her head. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, it was weird.” He started fiddling with his fork, trying to avoid making eye contact with either of them. “I thought it’d be a piece of cake, but then I got there and I didn’t know _any_ of the answers. I don’t know why -- I thought I knew this stuff, but it’s just... gone or something.”

“Aw, that’s okay, my bromide! It’s not, haha, it’s not like you’re supposed to know _everything_!”

“That’s the thing -- for some dumb reason, I didn’t even study! I thought I’d just know.” He turned to Lionel, and shrank back into his seat under his father’s gaze. “Sorry dad… I know I’m supposed to do better than that.”

“It’s alright,” Lionel responded. Dipper picked his head up again, looking even more confused than before. “It’s great that this matters to you, but everyone makes mistakes.”

“I, uh… I just failed a test. Aren’t you mad at me?”

“No….?” Lionel trailed off as Belle furiously tried to signal him to stop, change lanes, take an immediate U-turn, stat! Unfortunately, none of that meaning seemed to be getting communicated to him. He furrowed his brow in confusion, cueing Dipper to look at her too, and so she stopped.

“Anyway,” he continued, “it’s not the end of the world if you don’t know everything. I’m sure it’ll be back by next time.”

Belle bolted out of her seat, jostling the table and spilling some pasta sauce onto her skirt. “Hey dad! Can I talk to you alone for a moment?”

“We’re in the middle of dinner. Can it wait?”

“I guess so,” she responded through clenched teeth.

She sat back down and stared at her plate, trying to ignore the suspicious glances Dipper kept sending her way. He seemed confused enough at her outburst to have stopped asking questions for the minute, and Lionel must’ve taken some amount of the hint as he didn’t try to restart the conversation, so the three of them ate their spaghetti in mostly silence.

It felt wrong -- Dipper usually had some wild conspiracy theory he had been investigating and couldn’t wait to talk to literally anyone about, so he’d regale them at the dinner table while Belle provided comic relief and Lionel watched his kids with amusement and pride. That had been before Gravity Falls; they still had interesting dinner conversations after Dipper found out that he was Alcor in disguise, but they were of a different calibre, because conspiracy theories no longer tickled his interest when he had infinite knowledge. For now, he was basically human, and he should be getting to enjoy the mystery of unsolvable conspiracy theories again, but instead there was silence and Belle felt the pit in her stomach grow and grow.

This wasn’t good, but it was fixable. After dinner, Dipper went to the bathroom and she cornered her dad to remind him that he couldn’t talk about demon stuff around Dipper. When he got out of the bathroom, she pulled him into the TV room and put on Pony Magic Academy, but left the remote near him so he could quickly snatch it up, change it to something else, and forget his suspicions amidst a sibling squabble. It was the tried and true art of distraction, and it seemed to work, but the heavy feeling in Belle’s stomach just got worse as she thought about how easily she was manipulating him.

_It’s okay to be protective of him_, she thought, as he put on Ghost Hunters and glued himself to the screen.

_It’s for his own good_, she thought, as they went upstairs and listened to his favorite top 40 hits.

_He’s happier not knowing_, she thought, as she got into bed and bid her twin goodnight.

_I’m doing the right thing_, she thought, as she closed her eyes and wandered off to dreamless sleep.

* * *

Belle poked at the food on her lunch tray. It kind of wobbled in response, which was weird because the lunch room had advertised it as “Chicken Soup”. The quality of food in the cafeteria wasn’t usually incredible, but this was something else.

She looked up as Dipper dropped his tray across the table from her and sat down. The gelatinous cube on his tray was reddish-brown instead of green -- he must’ve gotten “Meatloaf”.

“Well, this sucks,” he said. Belle was rather inclined to agree with him. “Do you have any of that rainbow sparkle sugar glitter you always carry around?”

Her eyes lit up. Dipper never usually agreed to letting her put candy sparkles on his food, citing the fact that it “wasn’t technically food” and “had that FDA-banned type of denser sugar that was way more potent than normal sugar”.

“Do I!” she squealed. She fished around in her backpack, and her expression fell. “No I do not.”

They both sighed. He speared a piece of jelly with his fork and looked at it wistfully. “If I die eating this, you’ll tell dad I love him?”

“Only if you come back as a ghost and do the same for me.”

“Yeah, right. If I become a ghost, it better be for a much cooler reason than that. Like… to take revenge on whoever killed me, or maybe ooh to play pranks on hotel guests. You know how they always do that, in the movies? Imagine just pranking rich people in hotels for eternity.”

He laughed, and Belle’s stomach did a somersault. “Yeah but you wouldn’t _want_ to be a ghost, right?”

“If you’re asking whether I want lethal cafeteria food poisoning, the answer is no.”

“No… yknow…” Her eyes shifted nervously. “If- WHEN you die, would you want to be a ghost?”

He seemed to consider it for a few minutes. “I’d say probably not,” he responded finally. “From what I’ve read about ghosts, they’re kind of obsessed with whatever their reason for becoming a ghost is. I’m not really the obsessive type, so I wouldn’t want to get stuck obsessing over something until some ghost hunter puts me out of my misery.”

Belle screwed her face up, torn between relief at the reassurance that she was doing the right thing by keeping Dipper in the dark about his true nature, and amusement at the idea that Dipper wasn’t an obsessive nerd. She settled on a smile, but then the picture wandered into her mind of a demon obsessed with tracking down reincarnations of his human sister, and the smile melted away.

“Hey!” A cheery voice broke into Belle’s thoughts. She looked up to see Onika holding a gold encrusted lunch tray. “Mind if I sit with you two?”

“Sure thing!” Belle trilled. “What’s up?”

“Oh, everything’s _great_. There was a test in the spells class I’m in and I aced it with flying colors! Literally, the test was to create a rainbow. Most of the class only succeeded in making it rain hair bows. Hey…” She elbowed Belle, and pointed at Dipper. “Why’s Mr. Reality Bender giving me the stink eye right now?”

“Hey Onika, I have to go the bathroom!” Belle babbled, shooting to her feet before Dipper could even open his mouth.

“Okay… good for you…”

“Yeah, but uh, girls always go together, so come on!”

She hooked her arm around Onika’s and dragged her away from the table, leaving behind a very confused looking Dipper.

“What’s going on, Sterling?” Onika asked when they got to the bathroom. “Spill.”

“Don’t mention any demon stuff!” Belle hissed. “He doesn’t remember that he’s Alcor!”

“What? How does he forget something like _that_?”

Belle rubbed her temples, frustrated that no one seemed to immediately understand the genius behind her madness. “His body’s glitching or something, his memory will come back soon, but I want to hold that off as long as I can because look at how happy being human makes him!”

Onika looked nonplussed. “He seems kinda pissed, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but he’s always like that! I know he’s happier this way -- he told me when he had his memories that he wishes he could just have a normal, human life, and not have to know what he really is. Now he gets to, at least for a little while!”

“Okay.... that sort of makes sense…” Onika replied, with the air of someone who did not think it made any sense at all, “but if he doesn’t remember that he’s not human, why would he be happy that he doesn’t remember that he’s not human?”

Belle stared at her, opening and closing her mouth several times, gears in her head grinding against the grain to try to fight off a series of thoughts she didn’t want to be having. First dad, and now Onika? Did no one care about Dipper’s happiness other than her?

A sly smile crept onto Onika’s face at the lack of response, and Belle pouted. “He just is, okay? It’s deep inside of him or whatever, I don’t know.”

“Alright, you’re the boss. I’ll just pretend your brother is a normal human that I’m allowed to have a crush on again.” Belle’s jaw dropped, and Onika laughed. “Kidding! I’m kidding. Can we go back to the table now? I’m done not-peeing.”

Dipper had the same annoyed look on his face when they got back. It looked like he’d hardly touched his food in the meantime, and was practically following her eyes as she sat down.

She giggled nervously. “How’s it going, bro-bro?”

“Not bad,” he said slowly. “Having a great lunch over here _by myself_. How was the bathroom?”

“What? Oh yeah, so much fun. You know me, I love a good bathroom!”

Onika looked back and forth between them. “Hey, is this a weird conversation or is it just me?”

“No, everything’s fine!” Belle replied at the same time as Dipper said “No, it’s weird.” The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and Belle broke into a big, saccharine smile. Dipper rolled his eyes, and went back to his food.

Onika whistled. “Wow, having a sibling the same age as you must be exhausting. Good thing my sister’s 24. Anyway, the reason I came over was to ask if you two are doing anything for Halloween next week. My parents are throwing a party -- it’ll be very fancy and a downright bore, but maybe you’d want to come and keep me company.”

Belle clapped excitedly. “That sounds fun! I bet none of the fancy pantses are gonna use your antigravity pool -- we could take a swim!”

Dipper seemed to sink into his seat, and continued to spoon coagulated meatstuff into his mouth. Belle snapped a finger in front of his face. “Hey! Dipper! Did you hear Onika? Wanna go air swimming on Halloween?”

He shrugged. “That sounds fun, but… it’s Halloween, shouldn’t we be out getting lost in the woods or hunting ghosts?”

Oh yeah. Alcor could fly whenever he wanted. They should spend Halloween doing stuff that a demon wouldn’t enjoy in the same way a human would. She glanced at Onika, who hopefully had come to the same conclusion.

“Hunting ghosts definitely sounds better than a fancy dress party,” Onika said. “Well, I at least figured I’d ask. See you two later!” With that, she got up from the table, dropped her tray in the garbage, and strutted majestically out of the room.

Belle whistled. “She’s really something, isn’t she?” She smiled to herself, and then turned back to her brother, who had somehow sunk even further and was at risk of falling out of his seat altogether. “Hey, what’s going on down there?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll say, cause it looks like you’ve forgotten how gravity works!”

She grabbed his arm and tried pulling him back into his seat, which he obliged to with a large groan. He slumped over, cheek pressed into the table, not caring about the scraps of unknown food he was lying on. Belle prodded him in the forehead a few times, and then cocked her head.

“Well, I guess my brother is broken! I’ll have to find a new one! Seriously, what’s up?”

He sighed. “Okay, it’s just… embarrassing, so don’t make fun of me okay?”

“Definitely not, and that’s a Belle promise!” She mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. For some reason, that made him flinch.

“Okay. I’m just tired of only hanging out with your friends. Don’t get me wrong, Onika’s great, but it’d be nice if I had some friends of my own.”

Belle slapped herself in the forehead. “Ohhhhhh, duh! How could I be so delightfully naive? Yeah, you should make some friends! I can help you! I’ll give you tips!”

“You’re weirdly enthusiastic about this,” he said, picking himself up. He grimaced at the sticky patch that his shirt had received from lying on the table. “Thanks, though. Twins?”

Belle beamed and fist-bumped him. “Twins!”

The bell chose that moment to ring, and the room was filled with clattering as people scrambled from their seats. “Oh, heck-a-poo, we’re gonna be late for gym class!” Belle babbled, jumping up.

“Maybe later we’ll figure out some Halloween plans?” Dipper asked, after they’d emptied their trays and were heading out of the room. “If I’ve got new friends by then, we can -”

He was cut off by a carton of milk colliding with his face and exploding. He stumbled, eyes closed and sputtering, and Belle gasped.

“Hah, nerd!” chortled a voice in the crowd of people streaming from the room.

“Are you alright?” Belle asked, pulling him aside. At that moment, the bell rang again, and Dipper’s eyes sprang open in panic.

“Crap, we’re going to be tardy!” he yelped. He grabbed Belle’s arm and ran down the hall to his locker.

“Bro-bro, you’ve got milk on your face.”

“It’s fine! I’ll clean it off in the locker room! If I could only find my gym clothes… argh!” He rummaged through his locker, pulling notebooks and binders out and tossing them aside. “Crap, crap, crap, where are they? I’ll get in trouble if I don’t have them!” He slammed the door shut, and slid down the face of it until he reached the floor.

“It’ll be alright, we’ll just tell Mr. Plinker that you left them at home…”

“No, you don’t understand! This always happens!” His fists were clenched and his face was starting to turn red. “Someone stole them, I know it!”

“What? This always happens?”

“Yeah, some jerks are always stealing my gym clothes and hiding them in toilets, the dumpster, whatever!”

“I, uh…” Belle started to feel like her mind was caught in a taffy puller. “Always? Even… last week?”

“Yes, always, since the start of the year! I’m sick of it, it’s so stupid! I wish I just magically knew where everything was without looking for it!”

He slammed his fist into the locker next to him, and the sound rang abnormally loudly through the suddenly empty hall. Belle opened her mouth to respond, but faltered when she noticed the goop on his face, the icky lumps of dairy left behind as the milk he had been splashed with mysteriously curdled on his skin.

She bit back a gasp -- this didn’t _have_ to be a demonic powers thing, he might have just assumed that the milk was spoiled in the carton, or maybe he hadn’t even noticed because of how angry he was. Now wasn’t the time for her to be planning her next lie (and oh how she wished that wasn’t something she was seriously setting aside time for now). She grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet. He grumbled some fashion of thanks, and she walked him over to the boys bathroom so he could wash his face off. She offered to go in with him, but for some reason he wasn’t quite comfortable with that.

So, she was left waiting for him in the hall (she was already late for gym class, so she might as well be as late as him), and it was there that the soup of unwanted thoughts in her head started to curdle too. He’d said that people had been stealing his gym clothes since the beginning of the year, which meant that it’d been happening even when he knew he was Alcor. He definitely could’ve gotten them to stop with his powers, so he must’ve been _letting_ it happen.

But why? Was it because he didn’t want to blow his cover and reveal his true nature? Or… did he actually like being bullied, because it felt like the other students were treating him just like any other teenager? But Dipper without his memories was clearly really upset at being bullied, just like he had been before Gravity Falls. And that led Belle to the thought that she’d been stomping her foot down on more times than she’d like since this whole memories thing began: was Dipper actually happier with his memories than without?

She was still dwelling on it when he came out of the bathroom, face a little less red and all traces of milk gone. He grumbled some more at her, but she barely parsed it, so distracted she was by the way her mind was turning itself over and over again.

_It’s okay to be protective of him_, she thought, as they walked down the hall to the gymnasium.

_It’s for his own good_, she thought, as Mr. Plinker yelled at him for losing his gym clothes.

_He’s happier not knowing_, she thought, to block out the snickering when the two of them walked by a crowd of students on the bleachers.

_I’m doing the right thing_, she thought, and she felt worse and worse with every passing rationalization until she found herself wishing that this entire thing was just a bad dream from which she’d soon awake.


	3. Your Eyes Shine So Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Suicidal thoughts (or rather lack thereof) are briefly discussed.

“Hey, Dipper! Hey!”

Dipper kept walking, not seeming to hear his sister’s calls. He slunk through the crowd of students bustling about the entrance to the school, and slipped out the double doors in front. Belle frowned, and pushed through after him.

“Yo, DIP!” she hollered. “It’s me, your sister Belle, cmon I know you can hear me!”

Though he was at least 20 feet away, he seemed to shrink a bit. He lowered his head and sped up.

Alright, something was up. Belle hadn’t been born yesterday -- maybe she wasn’t _quite_ as old as Dipper, but she’d still grown up with him and knew how to identify the signs of Sad Brother-itis. She just hoped that the issue wasn’t demonic in nature.

She took a deep breath, put a big smile on, and sprinted to catch up with him. She leapt into his path and yelled “SURPRISE!”

He flinched, and seemed to narrowly avoid falling over. She reached for his arm to help him balance, but he corrected his momentum quickly and swatted her away. This wasn’t entirely strange behavior for Dipper when he was grumpy, so she put it aside and readied herself for some cheering up. “What’s going -”

Her smile died when she got a good look at him. His face was a red and blotchy mess, still wet from the crying that he was clearly too embarrassed to admit he’d done, and she didn’t have to ask to see why. The skin around his left eye was swollen and bruised, and he seemed to wince every time he blinked.

Belle’s jaw dropped. “Oh my stars, Dipper, your eye!”

“Shhh!” he hissed. He grabbed her arm, looked both ways, and pulled her across the street, away from the other students milling about. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is!” she yelped. He shushed her again, but she kept going. “What happened? Who did this? Do you need your big sister to beat someone up for you?” She slid the bangles off her right arm and flexed her bicep dramatically. “Let me at ‘em -- no one messes with a Sterling and gets away from these guns!”

Dipper did not seem impressed. “Stop, you’re just going to make things worse!”

Belle frowned, and put her bangles back on. “Sorry, bro-bro, I just -- what happened? You can tell me, right?”

“Okay, but… Don’t tell anyone, alright? That includes Onika, Alistair, Mindy, _and_ Dad.”

“Yeah, alright. Now tell me.”

“Well…” He looked at his feet again. “I took your advice. About… trying to make some new friends. So I talked to Jacen and Farah from Math club. You know them, right? They seemed nice, but they wouldn’t look me in the eye the whole time we were talking, and then they both said they had to leave and their excuses kinda sounded made up… Maybe I’m just paranoid.”

“You’re definitely paranoid, goober.” Belle poked him on the nose, and he scrunched his face up adorably. “That sucks though. And then you tripped, right?”

“No. A few of the football players came by, and…” Belle winced. “Yeah,” he finished, hand behind his head like he was trying to convince her that it was no big deal. As if he didn’t know that ship had already long sailed.

To his surprise, though, Belle smiled. “You know what this means? Time to come up with a payback plan! This’ll be fun, we can stop by the supermarket on the way home and get all the supplies we need, and if we do it at school then dad doesn’t have to know, and -”

“Belle, no, stop, this is serious. I’m having a really bad time right now and it feels like you’re not taking me seriously!”

Her grin slid back into a sickly grimace. “Okay, sure, this is bad. Y- you’re happy, though, right? In general?”

He threw his hands up. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m not happy! I failed a test, someone threw milk at me, and now I got beat up!”

She opened her mouth to try to respond, but it felt like her throat was shaking. Dipper didn’t notice this. He threw his notebook on the ground, and then grumbled:

“My life really sucks!”

Belle felt his words like a physical slap in the face. “But it’s better than the alternative, right?” she blurted.

He looked directly at her, and she gasped, because she could’ve sworn there was blue fire behind his eyes. “What alternative?” he asked, his voice slow and cold, sounding less like her dopey brother and more like something older and harsher.

She felt her heartbeat speed up, felt the thumping in her chest harder than the thoughts screaming in her head, and she couldn’t look away from the fire because this might be it, this might be the moment when it finally came back out. She wasn’t prepared to do this right now, she wasn’t prepared to comfort a sad demon who had been enjoying his humanity until his stupid sister opened her stupid mouth and accidentally poked him in the right direction torwards remembering.

Now she was sweating, and her throat felt tight. She was dimly aware of a voice hammering at her, but it sounded like it she was underwater, and all the thoughts and worries from the past couple of weeks were keeping her anchored at the bottom. Gradually, the pressure in her chest lightened, and the voice got clearer, until she could make out:

“Belle? Belle! Are you okay?”

She looked up -- when had she sat down? -- and saw her brother still looking at her. Whatever traces of Alcor she had seen a moment ago were gone -- now there was nothing but worry in his face. His face, which kept fading in and out, in and out…

“Belle, you’re hyperventilating, please…”

Oh, huh, she was. That was… a problem, right? The look on Dipper’s face certainly indicated so. She reached into her pocket and fished around -- aha! A fresh pack of gum. She stuffed a couple of sticks of it into her mouth and started chewing. As she did, her breathing started to slow down and her brain started to uncloud. She felt silly -- this kind of thing hadn’t happened to her in a while.

Which, she supposed, made sense. Alcor had promised to keep her safe.

As her breathing continued to stabilize, she felt Dipper sit down next to her. He pulled his knees up to his chest and sighed, long and dramatic.

“I’m sorry.”

She sniffed. “What are you sorry for?”

“I dunno. Acting so mopey lately?”

“Y-you’re allowed to not be happy.”

“I know, but…” He sighed. “I just don’t want you to think I’m going to do something extreme.”

She frowned. “Uh… what are you talking about?”

“Well, you know… You were talking about life being better than ‘the alternative’, and…” His voice kept getting quieter, and Belle had to lean in to hear him finish his statement. “I don’t want you to think that I want to die.”

She stared at him with a look of utter confusion. After a moment, he returned it. He opened his mouth to say something else, and then her brain finally parsed what he’d said.

“No, what?” she spluttered. “I wasn’t thinking -- I don’t think you -- wow, uh, no. Sorry to worry you, bro-ntasaurs. I know you want to live.” A thought drifted into her head, about a demon who long outlived his twin sister, and her voice wavered. “I don’t doubt it at all!”

He looked surprised, and then cleared his throat. “W-well, good. Because I do. Want to live, that is. Not doubt it. Ugh.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead on his palms. “This is so awkward.”

He looked at that moment more anxious and uncomfortable -- more _human_ \-- than he had since before Gravity Falls, and Belle couldn’t help but smile. In a weird way, it felt reassuring, that maybe he actually was getting the awkward human experience he so desired.

“I know, isn’t it great?” He looked up, confused, and she stuck her tongue out. “Want me to make it worse and tell you all about my current crushes?”

His lip quivered, and then he laughed. “Yeah, sure thing! Then I can talk about my favorite conspiracy theories!”

She joined in the laughter, and for a minute, all was good.

Then his face twisted, and again she saw something shimmer in his eyes.

“Wait a minute. If you didn’t think I wanted to… yknow… then what did you mean by ‘the alternative’?”

She froze. “I, uh, what?”

“When I was complaining about how much my life sucks. You said it was still better than the alternative. If the alternative wasn’t death, what was it?”

“Uhh, haha, I don’t, I don’t know, -”

“Because I’ve been thinking,” he cut in, “about why my life sucks, and I’ve… been coming up with some weird theories.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, no, weird theories? That doesn’t sound like you at all!”

“Maybe I’m looking into things too far. But things have been really weird lately and I’m wondering if you’ve noticed it, and if maybe that’s why you thought…”

“Thought? I didn’t think anything at all!” She hopped up and balanced on the tips of her toes. “All I thought was that Dipper, my brother, my twinteresting siblocity, was a funny fellow who needed a smile on his face and a bunch of rhinestones embedded on his clothes.”

He looked shocked for a moment, and then scowled. “Nevermind.”

Her smile faltered, and she dropped her heels. “Wait, no, ahh, I- I didn’t mean to be dismissive. You can tell me.”

“Can I?” he asked, with a sarcastic bite that Belle had rarely heard him use before. “Can I really?”

“Of course you can!”

“It doesn’t feel like it. You’re always deflecting whenever anything strange happens, and you keep pulling people aside to talk to them so that I can’t hear! Do you think I haven’t noticed that?”

“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean…”

“Then why? What’s going on? I thought, yknow, twins, we’re going to stick together and trust each other and stuff. But now it feels like you don’t trust me for some reason and it kind of scares me. It makes me feel like there’s something wrong with _me_, and with all the other weird stuff going on lately, well…”

He trailed off, but Belle knew well enough to see where that line of thinking was leading. In one quick motion, she jumped up and wrapped him in a tight hug. He squeaked as the air was knocked out of him, but was prevented from crumpling to the ground by her vice-like grip.

“Dipper, I’m sorry.” She rubbed her face into his shoulder, trying to hide the tears that were coming out to play. “I trust you, I really honestly do, and I’m such a doofus for making you think I didn’t.”

“You’re not a doofus…”

“Yeah, I am!” she huffed. She detached herself from him, and slumped a bit. “Listen, bro-bro, I know I’ve been acting super weird, and yeah it’s about you. But I can’t tell you why, because that’ll ruin it.”

“But…”

“I know that’s a huge cop-out! But you gotta believe me, everything I’m doing is for you! I just want you to be happy and if I tell you what I’m doing it would ruin it. Please…” She grabbed his shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. He squirmed a bit under her gaze, but didn’t wrench himself away. “Please. Can you trust me on this?”

“Belle…”

“Look at me, Dipper! You really think I don’t trust you, or that I think there’s something wrong with you?”

He sighed, and then locked eyes with her. There was something shimmering, _burning_ behind his, something grand and horrible, something loving and immeasurably ancient. It was so intense that her brain screamed at her to turn away, to not let herself fall victim to the monster in front of her, but that was a ridiculous, primal instinct. She didn’t stop trusting him when they found out he was really Alcor, and she wasn’t about to stop now. No, if there was anything she should be afraid of, it was the fact that she allowed herself to break _his_ trust in _her_. So she kept her gaze, and after a moment, Dipper deflated.

“Okay. I trust you.”

She grinned, let go of his shoulders, and gave him another big hug. “Thanks, m’brony. It means a lot to me.”

He smiled weakly, and then picked up his backpack. “Should we… be getting home?”

“Oh yeah.” She put her own back on, and then grabbed her brother’s hand. “Let’s-a-go!”

“No skipping, please, I’m too tired,” he groaned, but light-heartedly.

“Oh, alright, party pooper.”

They headed toward home, unlocking hands after a few minutes (because “Belle I love you but holding your sister’s hand in public is mortifying”). Dipper didn’t seem to want to talk, so Belle loaded in a fresh couple of sticks of gum and set away chewing.

She tried to drown out her thoughts with the art of bubble blowing, but couldn’t help but play their conversation over and over again in her head. Truth be told, she still felt rather anxious after that close call -- she hadn’t expected him to trust her enough to stop asking questions, and the fact that she had doubted him made her feel… weird. Almost like she knew him _less_ now that he didn’t know he was Alcor.

Because when she thought about it, he must’ve been missing memories of their friendship too, since him being a demon was inextricably tied to a bunch of their interactions. So it was kinda like she was talking to someone who she hadn’t known for two years. The whole act of keeping him in the dark about his true nature was suddenly leaving a bad taste in her mouth.

“Hey Belle?”

She snapped her head up, her brother’s voice breaking her out of her thoughts.

“I know you said you can’t tell me about this big secret now since it’ll ‘ruin everything’, but is it the kind of thing you’ll be able to tell me eventually?”

She opened her mouth to respond, quite forgetting that she was in the middle of blowing a bubble. The wad of gum, outweighed by the large air-filled bubble it was attached to, fell out of her mouth and landed on the ground.

“Oh, gross, why’d you do that?” Dipper moaned.

Belle stared at the gum, and then up at him. “Oh, uh, sorry.” She wrapped her hands around the bubble, which somehow hadn’t popped, and picked it up like a ceramic bowl. “And yeah. I’ll be able to tell you soon. Just not now.” She carefully stepped the bubble over to a nearby trash can, and dropped it in, where it again landed without popping.

“Okay. Thanks.”

Belle stared at the bulb of gum in the trash, and then shook her head. “Yeah, sure thing.” She skipped back over to him, and hooked her arm around his. “Is this better than holding hands?”

“Now I can’t tell if you’re deflecting or just being silly.”

“Why can’t it be both?”

He laughed, genuinely laughed, the smile unmistakable in his flame-less eyes. “Fair enough. But actually?” He unhooked his arm from hers, and grabbed her hand instead. “Maybe... this isn’t so bad either.”


	4. Night of the Living Dead

“Come on out, you look great!”

Dipper groaned. “This is humiliating! How again did you get me to agree to this?”

“You’re getting my ice cream for a week,” Belle answered gleefully. Was it a bribe? Sure was, but making deals with a demon so often had taught her that a good bribe can solve almost anything. It had also taught her how to craft a loophole, and since Dipper didn’t have his demon powers right now, he hadn’t noticed that if their dad bought popsicles for dessert that week instead of ice cream, she wouldn’t have to share any of it. “Now come out!”

Dipper made a noise that was clearly intended to convey just how displeased he was with the entire situation, but mostly sounded to Belle like an adorable, yowling cat. He shuffled out of the closet looking sullen. “Happy?”

“Yes!” Belle squealed and jumped around, the bangles on her arms jangling loudly as she did so. “That costume looks really good on you!”

He turned around, and flinched when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was wearing a long, sky blue poncho with pictures of birds flying across. He had grass-green pants and shoes, and a plush headdress that looked like the sun. It covered most of his head, leaving only a very nonplussed Dipper face sticking out. “I look ridiculous.”

Belle clapped giddily. “Nonsense, you look great, and it works because we match!” Her poncho was black, and studded with white little LED lights that looked like twinkling stars. Her long skirt and shoes were also black, and her headdress was shaped like a crescent moon. “It’s great, because we’re so different, we’re like... day and night!”

“Why do you get to be night?” he humphed. “At least you’ll blend in when it’s dark out.”

“I get to be night because I’m dark and brooding, and you’re sunny and delightful!”

“Belle, that’s the opposite of -”

“Well, you’ll be bright and sunny when we go out! You’ll have to be -- it’s Halloween!”

Dipper facepalmed. “Aren’t we a bit old to go trick-or-treating?”

“Yeah, we are. And it saddens me greatly! But we won’t be going trick-or-treating. We’re going to be going…” (she imitated doing a drumroll) “to a haunted house!”

He gaped at her. “What?”

“Onika told me there’s this old apartment building her family owns that no one lives in anymore because it’s full of ghosts and stuff! That’ll be fun, right? Ghost hunting, looking for mysteries, and all that?”

“That does sound fun…” He seemed to think it over for a bit, and then nodded. “Alright, sure. I’m in. But I’m not going outside in this outfit unless you make it two weeks of ice cream.”

“Deal!” She raised her hand for a high five, but Dipper had already turned around and was walking out of the room.

Oh yeah. This was just normal bribery -- no demon magic involved.

* * *

Belle was pretty pleased with her plan. A haunted house was the perfect thing for Dipper on Halloween. His powers were locked up, so he wouldn’t get summoned away in the middle of their fun. He always loved mysteries and exploring when they were younger, and since he didn’t know he was a demon, he could fear for his life just like everyone else! Yes, she thought, this was the perfect thing for him to get to enjoy while his Alcor memories were gone.

As for her? She honestly wished she could be going trick-or-treating. It wasn’t _really_ true that they were too old, because she knew Alistair was taking his younger brother trick-or-treating, and that’s still technically getting to go trick-or-treating because adults usually give out sympathy candy to the teenagers who have to chaperone little sugared-up kids around town at night! But she knew Dipper wouldn’t enjoy it correctly -- sure, he had a sweet tooth like no other ancient demon she’d ever heard of, but scaring strangers into giving him candy was something he didn’t need to be human to do.

Besides, he was starting to figure things out. She was going to have to tell him soon enough. Might as well make sure he had some extra special fun before she does.

“Are we almost there?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s just at the top of this hill.” She stuck her tongue out. “What, is Mr. Sunshine getting scared out here in the dark?”

“No!” he replied indignantly. “I’m just excited. Why again does Onika’s family own a haunted apartment block?”

“Oh! It’s a good story!” She pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and held it under her chin. “Legends say that Onika’s family promised a group of construction workers that if they built a building for them, they’d get invited to fancy apartment dinner parties all the time. But when the building was finished and Onika’s family sent out the first invitations, the workers were left out! Then, a big piano hanging from a girder 15 stories up suddenly fell down and squished them! They swore to haunt the apartments and get their revenge on rich people forever!”

Dipper scoffed. “Come on, you just stole that from the legend of the haunted Northwest Mansion in Gravity Falls.”

“Who knows? It could be true!”

They came over the crest of the hill, and there it was: an old apartment building.

“...is this it?” Dipper asked, nonplussed. “Seems a little underwhelming.”

“Yeah! Come on, Onika gave me the keys.” She skipped up to the front door, and pulled out a jangly keyring. “I think some of these are to public pools, country clubs, celebrity houses… aha! Creepy apartment block key!” She unlocked the door, and the two of them were hit with a wave of stale air. Belle sniffed in enthusiastically, and then coughed. “You smell that, Brolock Holmes? That’s the smell of mystery!”

“More like the smell of mildew,” he responded, also coughing. Still, he edged past Belle and into the building. Smiling, she skipped after him.

“I think I found a light switch,” he said. There was a click, and the room lit up. The hallway looked positively from another era -- carpeted floors, wooden doors, a chandelier with incandescent light bulbs in it. There was a layer of dust over just about everything.

“Hallway seems pretty not-haunted,” he remarked after a minute. “You wanna take a look in some of these rooms?”

“Sure, but there’s no chance on earth that we’re splitting up! You’ve seen horror movies!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He went over to the nearest door, and activated the opening mechanism. It was unlocked, and swung open with a loud creak. “Belle, can I have your flashlight?”

She hugged her phone to her chest. “Use your own, goober!”

“Sheesh, fine.” He pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and shined it into the room. Not much of note immediately jumped out at them -- a dusty sofa, dusty coffee table, dusty chairs, dusty TV. He signaled for Belle to follow him, and they tiptoed together into the room. Once inside, they both shined their lights around in a wider arc, trying to get a better look at the room.

“Huh,” Dipper said. “Kind of a letdo-”

There was a loud noise, and the door to the apartment slammed shut. The twins both yelped and jumped about a foot into the air.

“Dipper? What’s going on?” Belle asked, voice shaking.

“Dunno, but the door’s not opening. Lights aren’t turning on either. Let’s, uh… let’s take a look around.”

“Alright…”

He set off toward an old bookshelf, looking more excited than anything else. Belle settled for poking at the kitchen table. It had some weird old cables clamped to the underside of it, but nothing else so strange as to call haunted. Which was just as well -- at this point, she wasn’t sure whether she really wanted the apartment to be haunted or not.

And then she felt a tap on her shoulder, which she hoped against all hope was just Dipper pranking her, but she knew her brother was awful at pranks, and furthermore she could see out of the corner of her eye that he was on the other side of the room, looking at books on a shelf. She gulped, resigned herself to whatever fate would befall her, and turned around.

There was nothing there. She didn’t know whether that made things better or worse.

“You were a fool to come here.”

Belle’s heart sank. “Aren’t you having fun, bro-bro?”

He looked up from the dusty tome he was nose-deep in. “It’s alright. Kind of eerie, but I was hoping to see a ghost.”

“Oh. Why did you say I was a fool to come here, then?”

“What are you talking about?” He dropped the book and rushed over to her, his noodle-y arms flailing everywhere. “I didn’t say anything. Maybe it was a ghost? What exactly did they say?”

She opened her mouth, and then a voice that Belle could now tell _definitely_ wasn’t Dipper’s hissed “You’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

“You heard that, right?” she asked.

He nodded, and pulled his notebook out of his costume. Of course he’d brought his notebook -- he’d spent a lot of time researching ghosts and would want to have that research on him in a potentially haunted situation. “Let me see what we’re dealing with here. There’s the disembodied voice saying foreboding stuff -- that puts us at at least Category 3. Has anything else happened?”

“I felt a tap on my shoulder, but when I turned around, there was nothing there.”

He started to chew on the end of his pen. “Hmm, partial corporeality. Doesn’t really tell us much.”

“D-do you think it’s a ghost?”

“Definitely,” he replied, without a hint of nervousness in his voice. “I wonder if it’ll do anything else.”

“Do you want me to put on a show for you? Is _that_ what you want?” came a voice from behind them.

Dipper and Belle swiveled around instantly, and found themselves face-to-face with an old man, which ordinarily wouldn’t have been too frightening, because it was Halloween and he might’ve given them candy, but this old man was pale white, glowing, and almost definitely a -

“GHOST!” they both screamed, and the old man started to cackle. They turned around and raced for the door, but the ghost got in their way.

“I’ve waited too long for you to show up! You’re not getting away that easy!”

The twins skidded on their heels and changed course, heading for the window.

“Nope! That won’t work, Sterlings! You’re mine now, and I’m never going to let you go!”

Belle’s heart was racing at the speed of light, and she felt like she was going to be sick. Beside her, Dipper was vibrating, and she couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement. He opened his mouth and the voice that came out was high-pitched and squeaky. “Wh-what did we do? Why have you been waiting for us?”

The ghost cackled again. “You don’t even know what you’ve done! That’s so rich. Here, why don’t I give you a reminder?” He started to float toward them, and Belle’s mind short-circuited.

“_Simia arcu impetum ignis_!” she cried, thrusting her palm forward.

“No, Belle -” Dipper started to yell, but it was too late -- a pulsating fireball shot from her hand and exploded halfway between Dipper and the ghost. Searing pain stretched over Belle’s arms, and the room was filled with screaming. Then, everything went black.

* * *

Belle’s eyes sprang open. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what was going on, and then she scrambled to her feet.

“Dipper?” she asked cautiously, although it came out as much more of a yell. She couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears, though she wasn’t sure whether that was because he wasn’t moving or because of the explosion that had just happened. She tried to look around, but the room was too thick with smoke. She pulled out her phone, which was thankfully still in her back pocket, to see if the flashlight would help her see, and then she heard it.

A moan, low and warbling, coming from somewhere near her feet. She yelped and jumped up, readying herself to launch another fireball if she needed to. “Whoever’s there, show yourself!”

“Belle…” came Dipper’s voice.

Belle shined her phone toward the ground, and waved away some of the smoke. Dipper was lying on his back, face contorted in pain. “Dipper!” she yelled, kneeling down next to him. He didn’t look good, but she couldn’t immediately see any wounds so she figured he was probably at least okay for now. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Belle… Ugh, you’ve gotta watch out next time. That… that spell was right next to my head, owww…”

His words were a little slurred, and she panicked for a moment that he was more hurt than he seemed. His body falling apart would be the absolute worst way for him to remember that he’s really a demon.

“What hurts, what can I do to help?”

“It’ll be fine, it’s just a headache,” he said, words interspersed with winces as he attempted to lift himself to his feet. “You know I’m sensitive to magic.”

She rushed to help him while mentally yelling at herself because actually she _had_ forgotten that he was sensitive to magic because it had been a while since it had been relevant.

“I think we’re in the basement,” he said once he was steady on his feet.

“Let’s get out of here. This was a disaster.”

“No, this was awesome!” He bounced in place despite his obvious pain. “That was a real ghost! I can’t believe he has a vendetta against us -- we should find out what’s going on!”

“Are you serious? He was threatening to hurt us! We should go home!”

He looked at her up and down, and then at their surroundings. “Okay. Maybe a little recon would be good.” He didn’t sound particularly scared, but his hand mysteriously reached down to hold hers.

They made their way over fallen wooden beams and around broken furniture to a rickety staircase, which led directly outdoors. Belle let out a sigh of relief. They were out of there. They were going to go home, and she was going to call Onika and babble about the ghost that tried to kill them, and then Dipper would get his pinboard out and start drawing lines and conspiracies everywhere, and everything would be okay.

Then a familiar voice broke into her thoughts. “You stupid kids! Where do you think you’re going?”

They both swiveled around. The ghost was standing in a large hole in the side of the building -- apparently Belle’s fireball had a greater range than she thought. However, the ghost seemed a bit… different. He wasn’t glowing anymore, and was coughing through the still-settling dust, which seemed like a weird thing for a ghost to have to do.

Dipper’s eyes boggled. “You’re taking human form! How is that possible? Not even the strongest ghosts can do that without outside help! Are you working with a demon?” The last word felt like a kick to the stomach to Belle, but she clenched her teeth and said nothing.

“I’m not a real ghost, idiot!” The man broke into another coughing fit, and stepped out of the building. In the moonlight, Belle could see a sickly substance dripping off of him. “Haven’t you ever been to an arranged haunting before? You weren’t in any danger, you didn’t have to destroy the apartment!”

Belle’s jaw dropped. “An arranged haunting? Y-you’re not a real ghost?”

“No! This is just stage ectoplasm, and the door and furniture were all hooked up to a remote control! Did you even read the contract when you hired me?”

“Belle?” Dipper hissed. “What is he talking about? Did you know about this?”

“No, I swear I have no idea what he’s talking about! It… it must’ve been Onika! She’s the one who told me this place was haunted!”

Dipper facepalmed. “Stars above, _why_?” He took a deep breath, and turned to the not-ghost. “Sir? We’re sorry for uhh blowing up your apartment! We weren’t told that this was an arranged haunting, and also we’re only 14 so please don’t sue us!”

“Are you serious? You’re going to pay for what you did to me!”

“Okay. Plan B. Run for it!” Dipper hollered. Belle didn’t need telling twice -- they both started sprinting toward the hill.

“Stop, you hooligans!” The old man ran after them, surprisingly quickly for someone that old.

Belle glanced behind them. “He’s going to catch us!”

“No!” Dipper replied. “We can do this!”

“I can’t run that fast -- my costume is too long!”

“Gotcha!” came the man’s voice. He grabbed Belle’s wrist in a weird, twisting motion, and she shrieked in pain. She almost fell over, but the man held her upright.

Dipper skidded to a halt up ahead. “Belle!”

“Why’d you do that, you big meanie, that really hurt!” she gibbered at the old man.

He glared down at her. Standing directly beneath a streetlight, and still dripping with stage ectoplasm, he lit up with an ominous aura. “That’s what criminals like you get for destroying my business!”

“Let go of her, you… you monster!” Dipper yelled. Belle could barely see him in the dark, but something was making his eyes glow. She really hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was.

“Monster? Watch your tongue, young man! It’s you who’s the monster here! You’ve got no respect! I’ve seen your type before -- one minute you’re vandalizing private property, next you’re out there spilling blood and running from the law! You’re coming with me down to the police station. Some time in a holding cell will do you good -- knock some sense into you so you can be a decent human being!”

Belle gaped at the man’s ridiculous spiel. “Please stop, we’re sorry, please just let us go!”

“You should’ve thought of that earlier! You’re coming with me, princess!”

He jerked her forward by the wrist, and the pain made her vision go blurry.

“Stop right there!!” Dipper yelled, and his wobbling voice reverberated through the area. “Let her go now… or else!”

“You’re nothing but a miserable hoodlum, kid, and you’ve got some nerve threatening me after what you did!”

Belle managed to focus her eyes, and peered over toward her brother. He was definitely glowing at this point -- light flooding from his sun-shaped headdress, though whether he was aware of this she didn’t know. He pointed a finger at them, and Belle fell to the ground, released from the man’s grip. She scrambled away from him -- less because she was worried about what the man would do, and more because she was worried about what Dipper was about to do.

“Dipper, I’m okay -” she started.

“Why, you little gremlin! I’ll get you!”

“**T͎̹͓̝͈̬̟͔̅͂͑ͩ̑͜h͎͕͎̮͍͙͍͔̎͊͑́̕͟ǎ͖̄̋ͧ̅ͬ̄ţ̛̼̤̖̙͎͖̦̬̽̆̃́̑ͅ'̶̢̨͚͚̮̐͊̾͊ͪͦ̃s͕͚̮̫̺ͪ̉̃͝ ̢ͭ̂̈̅͢͏͇̭̻͇̬̦Ė̦͓̥̹̠͎̈͊̇͗̍̕͟͞ͅN̶̳̮̜̫̭̣̝̣ͭ͌̉̈̃ͫ͌̚͞O̬͖͙̝͕̦̟͍̅̾̌͢U̷̞̰͕̞̗ͩͬ͑͊̄ͪ̈́͘͘G̛̫̞̱̍Ĥ͖͔̥͇̠̬͇̾ͩ!̛̗̥͆̆̋͐ͩ͊̽**” Dipper screeched.

For a moment, the world seemed still but for the sound of Dipper’s voice echoing through the air. Belle heard a creak behind her, and rolled over to see the man almost over her. Then she heard the creak again, and looked up just in time to see the streetlight above them swing, once... twice… and then snap.

Belle screamed. The man paused, his expression twisting from anger to confusion, and he looked up to see what had frightened her. He barely had time to jump out of the way before the streetlight hit the ground and exploded, right where he’d been standing not a moment ago.

There was a blinding light and a wave of heat that seared Belle’s skin. She braced herself and squeezed her eyes shut in pain, but she couldn’t block out the image burned into her retinas. Through the ringing in her ears, she could dimly hear the man swear and stumble back, but she could barely concentrate on that, not with her heart beating so fast and her senses completely overloaded.

What felt like minutes passed as the heat of the fire and the ringing in her ears gradually lessened. When she opened her eyes, the man was a good twenty feet away. His arm was raised to point at her -- no, at someone behind her -- and he had a look of pure terror on his face.

He saw her move and jumped back. “Call off your demon!” he yelled. “I’ll leave you alone! Please just stop!” Then he turned around and ran away as fast as he could.

Belle’s heart sank. She didn’t want to know what was going on behind her, but she knew she’d have to get up eventually. She rolled onto her stomach, and finally dared to peer into the night.

Dipper was lying on the ground up ahead -- the glow was gone but she could see him easily because of his costume. She struggled to her feet and wobbled her way over. His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing. Whatever happened -- whatever he did must’ve taken a lot out of him. She planted her butt on the ground and buried her face in her hands. This wasn’t meant to happen -- it was just supposed to be a fun treat that Dipper would enjoy in a human capacity. And now…

There was a choking noise, and she picked her head up. Dipper, eyes still closed, spluttered for a bit, and then went back to slow, steady breathing. He looked so peaceful -- she tried to imagine he was just resting on the grass after a long day. He looked so harmless, too -- just a regular human boy wearing a silly costume and claws -

She felt something inside of her snap. Claws. Stupid claws! What was she doing wrong? Why did something have to blow up in her face at every turn? She balled her hands into fists and punched the ground, trying to hold back the tears. Why couldn’t her dumb brother stop being a demon for a _single second_ and just be happy?!

She took a deep breath, in and out, and unclenched her fists. She reached a hand toward his, but before she could make contact, the air twisted weirdly, and then his nails matched hers. Dull and human.

Something hitched in Belle’s throat. She laid back on the grass, and let the tears fall.


	5. And Then My Mind Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Body horror (but no blood or gore).

“Bang! Pow! I’ve got you, man!”

Gunshots blared through the room, followed by an overdramatic scream. Belle had to stifle a yawn.

Family movie night was usually pretty fun, but the movie her dad had picked out had her thoroughly bored, so she was entertaining herself in the usual way of smacking around a big wad of gum in her mouth. Her dad, on the other hand, seemed very invested in the movie, having sunken into his armchair when it started and not having said a word since.

It kind of seemed like the sort of movie Dipper would enjoy too, but when she looked over to gauge his interest, she saw that she was alone on the couch, and she had no idea when he’d gotten up. Alarm bells rang in her head -- ever since the incident on Halloween, Dipper had been asking too many questions, and she knew things were quickly getting out of hand. She’d taken to keeping an extra careful watch around him to try to keep his old memories at bay, and she knew it was starting to grate on him.

The train of thought she was heading down started to get overwhelming, so she tried to make herself focus on the movie instead.

“Dashell, I’m sorry! I tried to protect you as long as I could! I never wanted you to know about the treasure -- all who have searched for it are doomed!”

There was a groan, and the sound of tobacco disturbing a spittoon. “It was useless to try to keep it hidden, my darling. Can’t no one keep news of a treasure from me.”

“Doomed from the start, then. What a fool I was to love someone like you! I was only ever a footnote in your life, wasn’t I? The treasure was always more important.”

Labored breaths interspersed with coughs, and then the gruff voice again: “Maybe you were a fool but then I reckon I was too. If I’d’ve known better I woulda listened to you and kept my nose down. I’m sorry, Petunia, that all your efforts were for nothing.”

“Oh, Dashell, they weren’t! If I kept you away even for a minute, then to me it was worth all the trouble, because that’s one more minute you were alive and well, and foolish as I am, nothing else means more to me!”

There was a _fwump_, and Belle looked up to see that Dipper had returned and had sat down next to her on the couch, just as she started to blow a big bubble. For a few minutes, he just stared straight ahead at the TV, occasionally stealing glances at her out of the side of his eye. Then:

“Hey Belle?”

Belle’s bubble popped, the gum snapping back like a slap to the face, and she frowned. “Yeah bro-bro?”

He coughed nervously. “Can I show you something?”

“Yeah sure! Is it a movie? ‘Cause this one is awful.”

“No, uh, it’s in our room. So we have to go to our room.”

Belle blinked. “What?”

“Yknow…” He nodded towards their dad, who was sitting a few feet away, and Belle couldn’t help but notice the air spark a little by his head as he did so. The room suddenly felt a lot colder.

“Oh. Yeah, okay.” She got up and scraped the gum off her face into the trash.

“Be right back, Dad!” Dipper croaked, barrelling out of the room with his head down, leaving a trail of sparkles behind him. Belle followed slowly, glancing at their dad as she passed him. He stared back silently, letting the resignation on his face speak for him.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Dad,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “It’s probably just some embarrassing nerd thing.”

He didn’t respond. Dipper’s voice rang out from the next room, “Belle! What’s taking you so long?”

Her dad’s expression morphed to one of pity. She stared for a moment, then exhaled, fixed a smile on her face that she hoped looked realer than it felt, and ran out of the room. “Coming!”

Dipper was standing in their bedroom. She skipped past him and did a twirl. “What’s going on, Dip-”

He slammed the door shut -- cutting her off mid-sentence -- and leaned against it. For a minute, he just stood there and breathed, big heaving breaths as if he’d just been sick. Then he looked up at her with eyes black as coal, and her stomach dropped out.

That thing about stopping before the situation went too far? Oops.

“Belle, I have something really important I need to talk about and you have to promise me you’re not going to deflect, okay?”

Belle felt like she was sinking into the ground. She tried to speak but could only manage a weak gurgle. She settled with giving him a nod.

“I’m serious -- you can’t deflect even if it would ruin whatever big secret you have that you think is making me happy, because whatever it is, it’s clearly not working, I am _so_ not happy right now, I feel like I’m going insane!”

She managed to break past whatever was holding back her voice, but the sound that came out of her throat was hollow. “I-I won’t deflect. I’ll even tell you the secret, please…”

He shook his head. “You can tell me later, I can’t keep this in anymore!” Her mouth clamped shut, and she wasn’t entirely sure that it was voluntary on her part.

Dipper took a deep breath, and the color started to seep out of the room. “I… I think something’s wrong with me. Or, like… I think…” He sucked in a cold breath and pressed his fist into his forehead. “I think I might not be human.”

Oh no. Ohhhh no.

He started pacing, waving his arms around as he did. “I don’t know when it happened, if I got bitten or infected or something, but I keep _seeing_ things, like things that aren’t there. Stuff like you or dad just, dead and covered in blood. And it always feels like… it’s my fault somehow. Like it’s my instincts coming to life.”

His voice sounded strangled for a moment, and then he broke into a coughing fit. He leaned against the door again and slid down to the floor. Whatever force was keeping Belle’s mouth shut fell limp. She bit her lip and sat facing him. Her brother turned his face away, but she couldn’t help but notice the tears running down his nose -- tears which should’ve been clear but were instead a shimmery gold.

“A-and that’s not all. Sometimes I see colors around people. When I have my headaches, everyone gets really colorful, and it just makes the headache worse. And then there was that thing on Halloween, with my voice, and then th-the streetlight fell…”

“You didn’t… it couldn’t… That was just a coincidence,” she offered uselessly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No, no, it was me, I don’t know how but I know, somehow, I did that! I was so mad at him, he was hurting you! He can’t do that, doesn’t he know that **y̧o̦̙ͅu̥̖̘͢'̛r͞e͏̰̤͇̗̪̜̲ M͈͈͎̰̙͡ͅI҉̠͚NE̠͚͉̹̖ͅ**? And I was yelling, and then, I just... felt it -- felt the cable snap and then it was falling and it almost… it almost -”

He finally looked at her, and froze. Belle tilted her head in confusion, and his arms shot out, holding her by the temples. She yelped, but he ignored her, pulling her head closer and staring into her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she whimpered.

“Belle?” His voice was quiet and hollow, with just a tad of echo to it. “Belle? Please tell me your glasses are dirty. Pleeeeeeeease tell me you just touched something gross and forgot to wipe them.”

“Dipper…”

The demonic reverb in his voice crescendoed as he spoke. “Please tell me my eyes aren’t black and that everything’s normal and I’m just having a bad dream, please, please, **P̿́̂͊̋͒ͤ̾ͩ̑̓̏̎̌̅̔҉̳̙̘̘L̶̸̡̘̞̘̳̫̭̦͕̩̗̠ͧ̍ͯ̕̕E̵̵͖̣̪͈̾̽͛ͥ̉ͤ͑̉͗ͫ̿͑̍̆̌͟͠A̬̳̥̙̺ͥ̈́̐͜͡ͅŞ̢̤̺͍͉̣͉̥̻̱͈͂̒̑̈́̉ͪͨ̆̊ͯ̂̓̏̇͜͡Ḛ͉̜̼̱̜͙̞̗̗̰͍̠̏̅͋̍͑͊̇̐ͣ̂ͯ͐̿̎͛̍̚͘͡ͅ**!”

His voice flanged into a booming echo on the last “please”, and all the windows in the room shattered. Belle felt as if she’d just been punched in the stomach, but fought her body into staying upright because Dipper needed her right now. This was all her fault anyway. She wrapped him in as tight a hug as she could muster and tried to think of how she was going to do this.

He was really sobbing at this point. “Please, Belle, I’m just so scared, I don’t know what to do, I don’t- don’t want to tell dad that I’m... t-turning into a monster!”

This was the hardest part. Not because she was afraid or anything -- she loved her brother, demon or not. But this was the part she had been dreading because she knew how much Dipper just wanted to be human, and she was going to have to take that away from him -- again.

Who was she kidding? He hadn’t been human the whole time.

She sighed, and gathered all the confidence she could muster. “Hey Dipper?” she said, and he looked up at her and _the pain in his eyes_ \-- she almost couldn't handle it. But she had no other choice. Her dad was right -- the longer she let this go on, the more it would hurt him in the end.

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

Belle felt her lips moving, but the words themselves didn’t seem to reach her ears. She saw Dipper’s expression twist from one of fear to one of pure anguish, and then the air in the room started to rush violently around her, threatening to pick her off the ground. She felt like she was falling -- or was it just that Dipper and everything else in the room was rising? She wondered briefly why he was leaving her behind.

Then her hearing cut back in and she was hit with a howl of agony, so loud and violent that it shook the house and tore through the entire neighborhood. The world seemed like it was on fire, but just for a moment -- and then it was over, and everything was still. Silence, like nothing had happened, like everything was back to normal. And in a sense, it was.

Dipper was a crumpled heap, lying an inch above the floor and parts of his body flickering intermittently from human to something darker. His wings were flapping erratically and his top hat was lying off to the side. His clothing had changed -- the right half of him was still clad in his human guise, but the left was wearing his trademark suit. Belle crawled over to him -- she found that her legs suddenly did not want to obey her -- and lightly shook his side, to no response. She knew he was physically (metaphysically?) alright, but she also had all the reason in the world to worry for him.

She pushed herself into a seated position and closed her eyes. She wanted to _scream_, she wanted to hug him and apologize and go back in time and tell him everything a month ago and then give her past self a massive smack on the head for being such an idiot. Dad was right. Onika was right. She didn’t know what was best for him. She was being a fool.

“Hey Belle?”

Her eyes flew open, and she saw him rolled over to face her. His face was only half there, the other half just a blocky mess of glitter gold particles that was nauseating to look at.

“Yeah?” She could barely get the word out.

“...thank you.”

The world suddenly got very blurry.

* * *

Lionel set the teacup on the bedside table. "Are you up?" he asked, gently, to the huddled mass of pillows and blankets tucked into the bed.

The mass groaned playfully. "Well, yeah. I can't really sleep like this. My body keeps trying to but I can't play along yet."

A pair of hands slipped out of the blanket cocoon, pulling them back to reveal something not fully human but not fully demon either. "And you know tea won't help me get better faster, right?"

"Alright, I guess I'll just drink it myself, then."

"No!" Dipper yelped, his hands (one of which only had two fingers) flying towards the cup before his dad could take it away. "I still want it!"

Lionel smiled at his son, who easily managed to sound like the petulant 14 year old he was pretending to be instead of the ageless demon he truly was. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, I’ve definitely seen better days,” Dipper replied, grabbing the cup with his thumb and ring finger, and blowing on it. “But on the bright side, at least I don't need a full hand to drink tea!"

“Maybe not, but I find it usually helps.” Lionel sat on the edge of the bed. “I called the school and told them you had the flu, so you’ve got plenty of time to recover.”

“Ugh, what? I don’t get to go to school? Just because my body’s falling apart?” He pouted -- and his ear sharpened to a point as he did so -- but Lionel could see the laughter bubbling underneath.

“The last time you tried walking around,” Lionel replied, crossing his arms, ”your foot vanished and you fell down the stairs. Staying home and resting will be good for you.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiine,” Dipper moaned. He stuck his tongue out. “Thanks… thanks for…” (his voice got very small) “taking care of me, Dad.”

“Of course. I’ll be downstairs. Let me know if you need anything.”

He started to walk out of the room, thought twice about it, and then headed back over to give his son a light kiss on the forehead. Dipper eeped and blushed bright red, prompting his dad to smile fondly as he left the room for real.

Just outside the bedroom door, he gave Belle a pat on the head and said “You can go in now.”

Belle nodded nervously, and stepped into her dad’s room. Dipper was lying in bed, looking not much better than he had a couple of days earlier.

“Hey… bro-bro,” she said, trying as hard as she could to sound cool and casual. “Fancy seeing you, uh, here.”

He snorted, and mimed looking around the room. “Belle? Is that you? Belle would never be _that_ nonchalant! Where’s my _real_ sister?”

She flinched, and the grin died on his face as he realized the implication of that statement. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he hurriedly added. “I just meant that it’s nice to see you -- I haven’t seen you since… the other day.”

Belle squirmed under his one-eyed gaze, which didn’t look judgmental or angry but made her feel bad nonetheless. "Your, uh, your face is still kinda… not all the way there."

He smiled weakly, which looked really weird given that only half of it was visible. "Yeah… My body is just repairing itself… It was malfunctioning for too long, so when the memories came back, it kind of fell apart. I'll be okay. I- I always am. And besides," he added, patting the empty space in the bed next to him, "it's definitely got me feeling like a kid again. It's a nice memory -- crawling into dad's bed when I got sick, wrapping up in blankets and falling asleep watching TV."

He chuckled, but it sounded forced. There was a long awkward pause after that, with neither of them making eye contact. Then:

"I'm sorry!" they blurted at the same time.

They both did a double take. "What? You? What are you sorry for? Hey, stop it!"

Dipper snickered and Belle pouted. "No fair, quit using your powers to read my mind!"

He threw his hands up, letting go of his teacup in the process, which ended up hanging there in the air, scalding liquid frozen in mid-fall. "I wasn't, I promise! That was a coincidence!"

"Sure thing, goober, I believe you.” A beat. “It's the twin magic, then! I guess this sort of thing probably happened a lot with Mabel too." He looked away, and the room started to feel awkward again. She changed the subject. "But, uh, seriously. What do you have to be sorry for? This was all my fault."

He snorted, although it sounded more derisive than amused. "Yeah. You're the demon in the room, not me."

She crossed her arms. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh come on, Belle," he replied, sounding exasperated. One of his wings reappeared, hanging out the side of the bed, flopping around like a fish out of water. "I talked about wanting to be human so often that I made you think you had to run around making yourself miserable to keep me happy and in check."

"That's my fault, not yours!"

He fixed her with a steely glare, and his eye turned black again. "No. I made you do it. I -" (his voice hitched, and he suddenly sounded ashamed) "I have your soul. I- I can make you do anything. Obviously that's what I did. Even when I don't know I'm a demon, I still act like one. Isn't that perfect?"

He laughed, the kind of laugh that isn't sure whether it wouldn't rather be a sob. "I'm a _monster_," he breathed, and it hit Belle like a slap to the face.

"You're not, stop saying that!" she yelled, and then froze, worried that she'd attract her dad's attention from downstairs. She hoped he was watching one of his old explorer movies with the sound up, but just to be sure, she lowered her voice. "This isn’t your fault, so stop blaming yourself! This is 100% my fault, me, Belle, your sister!"

"No it's not, you didn't have to do this!”

"Yeah, exactly, but I did it anyway, cause I- I thought if I could push off your memories coming back even a bit, it would be just a bit longer that you got to be human, but all it did was hurt you." She gestured to the glittery hole in his head. "A-and it was selfish of me, I… I'm sorry."

He frowned, his eye turning back to its familiar white-and-brown, and he patted the empty space beside him again. Belle took the hint, climbed into the bed next to him, and wrapped herself in a blanket.

"Sorry, bro-bro," she murmured. "It… It makes me really sad to think about you having to fight cults and answer summons and have demon-y instincts and stuff all the time. I, like, miss when everything was easier and the worst thing you had to deal with was telling dad that you failed a math test."

Dipper snorted. "As if that ever happened." Her head jerked upright, confusion printed all over her face in response to the goofy look on her brother’s. "Me. Failing a math test, I mean. As if that ever happened even before Gravity Falls."

“Hey!” She gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. "Come on, you know what I mean! The point- the point is, I didn’t tell you earlier because I miss when you didn't have to be a demon, and I didn't really know how to admit it. If I did, I would've realized way earlier that you weren't happy. So it wasn't you making me do this. It was me."

Dipper sighed. Looked at her without meeting her eyes, like he'd been caught doing something wrong. Plucked the teacup out of the air, scooped the still floating tea back into it, and took a sip. Belle watched the liquid go in his mouth and right out through the hole in his head, splashing on the bed sheet, sure to leave a nasty stain. He saw this, sighed again, and offered the cup to her. She accepted it cautiously and took a sip -- it was still quite hot.

He closed his eyes and let his expression droop. It was quiet for a few minutes, and Belle almost thought maybe he'd actually fallen asleep. Then:

"Do you ever wonder if we made the wrong decision by not erasing our memories again after Gravity Falls?"

Belle did a spit take without thinking, and ended up spraying tea in his face. He didn't react for a moment -- then realization dawned on his face and he yelped, jerking backward in shock. Just a little too late to seem natural, though.

"S-sorry bro-bro, that was, okay that was dumb. Looks like you're not the only one of us who gets up to cartoon-style shenanigans." A silly grin spread across her face. "I, uh, I got tea on your nice suit."

"Heh. That's alright. It's time I changed out of this anyway." He snapped, and suddenly he was in his pyjamas, the ones with little lambs on them. He smiled, a grin relatively free of sharp teeth, and for a moment he seemed so young and carefree. But then something flickered in the air, like he was a projection that someone was walking through, and the left half of him was wearing the suit again. He groaned, slammed his arms down on the bed, and sank into his blanket cocoon.

"I'm trying so hard to be normal again. Why won't this demon stuff stop?"

Belle laid flat on her back, and looked up at the ceiling. She felt oddly peaceful, like it was a Saturday morning and she was a kid again, watching cartoons in her dad’s room with her brother. It’d been a long time since they’d done that, but they were a bit older now, and they had new traditions and new hobbies. That had never stopped -- their family had always been so close-knit and warm, apart from the month Belle had spent lying to her brother about who he really was.

“Because you're my little brother,” she said, after a pause. She heard Dipper sit up beside her. “And my little brother's a demon. And nothing’s ever going to change that. But nothing's ever going to change the fact that you're my little brother, either.”

Still on her back, she turned her head and saw Dipper poking out of his blanket cocoon. He was silent, but his lip was definitely trembling.

She continued. “This is super deep but you’ve gotta hear me out. I’m still your sister, even though technically I’m not. Dad’s still your dad, even though technically he’s not. You still get to curl up in bed on a sick day and watch cartoons, even though you’re a demon and you can’t get sick. Don’t you see?”

She sat up, feeling a swell of excitement rise up in her chest. “When you made that deal with Dad to be my brother, did you do it because you wanted to be human or because you wanted to have a family again?”

Dipper took a shaky breath before opening his mouth. “Both?” His voice was weak, and cracked like he really was a teenager. “But I guess more the second one…”

“Yeah, and I should’ve realized that ages ago! Maybe you’re not _literally_ a human, but you still get to act like one and be a part of this family.” She wrapped him up in a bone-crushing hug (not that he had very many bones to break at the moment). "And I never ever want you to forget and go back to being a fake Dipper."

He sniffed, in that telltale “I’m Dipper and I’m _definitely_ not crying” kind of way, and she felt tears of her own start to drip over her massive grin. When she let go, he was wiping clear-colored tears onto the sleeve of his pyjamas, and the non-glitter part of his face was pink and puffy.

“Tha- thanks for-” (his voice broke and he coughed into his fist) “Thanks for being so deep. I really needed that.”

“Good, because who knows when it’ll happen again!” She ruffled his hair, scattering a layer of golden dust over the bed. They both stared at it, then at each other, and Belle made a face. “So, you’re not mad at me for letting your body explode?”

Dipper put on a show of thinking about it for a moment, and then broke into a dopey smile. “Nah, I’m not mad. You were just trying to make me happy, even if it was misguided and destructive. Just maybe… don’t do it again. And I guess I’ll try to be a little less mopey about the whole ‘not really being a human’ thing.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal!” She raised her hand for a high-five. Dipper looked at it nervously, then at his own hand. Then he shrugged, and slapped his sister’s hand, causing a puff of blue flame to momentarily dance between their fingers before evaporating with a soft _pop_.

Belle grinned ear-to-ear, hugged him again, and laid back down. “So. What are we going to do about the Dipper Dust all over Dad’s bed?”

He harrumphed. “Oh no, you are _not_ calling my magical dandruff ‘Dipper Dust’.”

“Can and already have O brother of mine!” She giggled and bopped his nose. “Also, you're bananas if you think ‘magical dandruff’ is any better.”

“Oh yeah? Well…” He hit her with a pillow -- causing her to yelp -- and snickered. “Take that!”

“Ack!” Belle recovered quickly and grabbed another pillow. “You’re asking for it now, mister!”

She swung at him, and for the next few minutes the air was filled with sparkling dust and the sound of laughter. Just like that, things felt normal again. The pillow fight soon died down, but their playful energy did not. They talked, they laughed, they put on some old cartoons, and they let the time pass.

When Lionel returned to his room, he saw his son and daughter lying on the bed, hand-in-hand, heads on each other’s shoulders, both sound asleep. Some more of Dipper’s face had returned, including the rest of his mouth, and he was drooling golden spit onto his lamby pyjamas. His breathing still had a bit of an otherworldly echo to it, but it was barely audible over the sound of Belle -- with her glasses still on -- snoring like a monster truck.

Lionel smiled, pulled a throw blanket over his children, and tucked them in. He removed Belle’s glasses, set them on the bedside table, and then picked up the empty teacup to take it back to the kitchen. On his way out, he looked back at them again, a girl and a demon, sleeping so chaotically and yet so peacefully at the same time. He turned the lights off, and eased the door shut behind him.

As he headed back downstairs, he thought to himself that this was good.

All was right with the world.

All was as it should be.


End file.
